


please don't go

by AbandonedWorld



Series: hope is just a stranger wondering how it got so bad [3]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pain, Slash, slight AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-07-22
Updated: 2011-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-21 15:42:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbandonedWorld/pseuds/AbandonedWorld
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles and Erik recollect the events that lead them to their current, very alone, states. Post-beach in the saddest way!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. all these arrows you threw, you threw them away

**Author's Note:**

> Title take from Barcelona's "Please Don't Go" song, which is a beautiful piece of angst music!

_"all these arrows you threw, you threw them away"_

I remember the blistering heat from that godforsaken, life-altering day. I recall thick, heavy air filling an aching pair of overworked lungs. Lungs that were choked by the searing pains of both anguish and nauseating betrayal. Feverishly-hot sand exploded as I fell, my legs foolishly, uncontrollably falling; falling, slowly falling down underneath the shocking weight of what had happened...but I didn't yet know then. I just hadn't _known_ what Erik had done to me in that moment.

The sun had burned its fire _into_ the silver projectile; like a devil with wings it flew, reflecting an image of horror as it soared towards me. These were the cowardly actions by a madman I had never known. Somehow, that moment, that _bullet_ –it was always meant for me. Erik's power to manipulate the man I once was had once taken place only through intimacy, where we were hidden in the depths of secrecy and shadow. But this day, his birth rites with metal and magnetism, married with the passionate drive of superior mutant evolutionary principles, had irrevocably lead me here.

Could I have put a stopper in time during Erik's treacherous act and prevented the death of my legs and our...rela--well, whatever we were? _Perhaps?_ , had I been warned. Yet, life is deceitful more often than not; it challenges our sanity through lustful whirlwinds while singlehandedly ripping us bare of all we hold close to our hearts and minds. There are moments where we can have it all, and then there are seconds when we lose everything. 

Our souls are branded by the hazardous community of man and his selfishness. We either stand firm to our beliefs or wait for fated unfortunates to throw pouring rain on what was once a galavanting, celebratory parade.

I digress.

...I remember white-hot vibrations surging within me and then the sudden acrid scent of my own blood. There it was, that rust-laden, recognizable taste followed swiftly by a rush of heat. A pool of crimson-red made its way onto my tongue, and I nearly choked because of it. My mind was a wreck of confusion and agony – it...the pain was so... _demanding._ I could focus on little else.

I watched Erik come to me in a flash of motion; tipping my face into the sand carelessly, I found that my arms were too weak to fight against him. I screamed. I cried out, albeit uncontrollably. Erik removed the metal slug from, what I would later come to discover, was my spinal cord. His large hands held me there to him for a moment as his eyes bored into mine from above. Like an demonic angel hovering over me, I feared the next words that were bound to be spoken between us.

The next few minutes were the last moments I had recognized the feeling of movement below my waist and true affection in Erik's eyes. The man was broken again, shattered and torn between his mutation and what we had shared alone, in absolute confidence with one another. It was then he begged me to remain by his side, his face softening in a fleeting moment that had passed too quickly for any human being to have seen. I held onto him with the only means I had left: one weak arm and aching fingers, grabbing, squeezing... _pleading_ with him. My mind was a malfunctioning machine, reaching and searching out to connect with his - to feel his warmth and energy flood my consciousness and erase my suffering; anything to substitute in this moment of loss would have helped. Loss of my legs. Of him.

And yet. Erik seemingly hadn't trusted me to remove that... _helmet_ long enough to say his farewell speech. His sudden wariness towards me was appallingly evident and my heart was bleeding from the knives he had thrust inside of me; the eyes of the strange mutant looming above my person had all but drowned me, Charles Xavier, into deaths grip itself. Erik's blatant submersion of my broken body into a reality unfamiliar and cold should have been reason enough to loathe the monster I was watching him become. And yet. I was already used to being numb and void without that magnetic presence.

Resting at the bottom of the ocean, my fears were wishing for actual death rather than Lehnsherr's bitter ultimatum. How could he have crippled me and then forced my hand into a choice that wasn't for the greater good? How could he have murdered Shaw and _trapped me into watching_ – knowing fully well I could _sense_ the coin as it slid through the other's flesh and bone? How could he have held me so gently after deflecting a bullet into my spine? How could he have ripped the shrapnel from my bleeding person and yet, reservedly listen to the torturous screams that escaped my mouth? How could he have expected me to have just... gone with him? _How?_

Weighted silence fell between us as the truth settled.

My heart had been beating furiously after his offer – and I knew the next thing said would determine the rest of our lives. Was this an ending? A new beginning? The finite facts were all there, now that I've taken to looking back on that God awful day.

I recall, quite clearly, speaking the words that had simultaneously sealed my fate and lit fire his lifelong mission with suffocating regret. Though throughout, I remained concise: there would be no compromise, no exceptions; no, Erik, _I cannot join you_. My words rejected him with visible strength and dignity but my heart was bludgeoning itself to withan inch of its mortality. I was panicked, stricken by all that happened, my chest heaving, lungs aching for air.

I remember seeing him signal for Moira to come over to me; it was an obvious order given so that she would know to support the brunt of my weight – Erik knew what I had changed into before everyone else. Only after she slipped underneath my torso did I realize that his spectacular energy was fading from me, leaving my body broken and my heart mangled. 

I stared out at the turbulent ocean and the retreating warships. Somewhere along the line I lost focus during Erik's mutant round-up but I came to, mind returning to the present just as a blurry spectacle of swirling motion caught my periphery; Erik vanished with Azazel, with Riptide and Angel, with Raven – my Raven. Oh. My eyes closed right then, and a sadness worse than death left me with liquid trails thunderously racing down my pale face.

I had refused Erik outwardly on that decimated beach, but inwardly I was dying, silently repeating a wish he hadn't heard: please don't go, please don't go, please, _don't go._


	2. you kept falling in love, and then one day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continued with Xavier's point of view – only he is reliving the beginning of their earlier days spent together. Post beach-breakup and lots of angst!

_"you kept falling in love and then one day"_

I remember how cold the water was that night, after I recklessly jumped into the sea in search of you. The opportunity to sacrifice my own life in an effort to save _Erik Lehnsherr's_ had been a rash but sound decision. There in the depths was a crazed man whom had all the symptoms of being on a passage towards incidental suicide. You weren't nearly strong enough back then - your hands were all but detaching themselves from two shaking, _desperately_ weakened arms. Pulling, pulling, pulling. The metal dragging _you_ ; it had been winning, overcoming your mutation and mocking you with each nautical mile. It was telling to meet you at your lowest of lows, for me at least.

Oh God, the blackness of that water and the hatred in your thoughts; yours was the most frightening of minds I had ever reached out and grasped ahold of. I spoke to your consciousness through my own, my resonating words calming the storms and saving your precious life. Because you _are_ precious, Erik. I served as a reminder of how vital your presence in this world is – how your light and your energy fulfilled more than merely the rage that had stolen so many years from you. I will continue to serve this purpose.

You are now, as you were then, _light_ , Erik. But your head was impacted by abuse and torture; those memories harmful and demanding, your abilities negatively affected rather than honed. And there's where I had entered your story. I leapt into that freezing water because something inside of you – something buried, hidden and long forgotten – had called out to me. Had begged and _longed_ for someone like me through all of your brutal years.

No, Erik, I never wanted to, nor have I ever controlled you. I have never looked upon you in such a way that would require such coercion. You were, and steadfastly remain, a man of your own conviction, capable to hold firm to the ideals you set for yourself. Never once would I have made to change such persistence and incomparable strength. I, simplistically, acted as an liaison to urge forth the greater good locked within your potential.

Bloody hell, _this_ is what I am imploring that you hear, old friend: I _knew you had it in you_. I still know of these truths, even as I am here - my legs motionless and harnessed together – the rest of me uneasy and uncomfortable atop the soft cotton of my great, empty bed. Dare I deviate from the political correctness and mention _those_ hours we had shared? Dare I talk of the emotions that had surfaced the night our heads broke the edge of that icy black water? Dare I tell the tale of how my mind has never known the true breadth of yours, the one and only consciousness I ache to feel again? Dare I tell of my desperation to see you here now, willing me entry to your innermost thoughts, so that I may ease the pangs of my own?

Do I share my heartbreak? The fantasies and phantoms that haunt and seduce me in the night? Dare I dare I dare I.

Would you consider me, if only once more, when the time comes? Please _see_ me now, visit and touch me as I am, Erik. Erik, please. I'm pleading now to nothing and no one; my overworked, exhausted mind has manifested enough armor to carry me through the day, but night lends to the imagination of shadows and fear. _I need you._

I...don't want to feel the painless void of my unmoving extremities, but _this_ agony isn't within my stricken lower half, nor the open wound in my flesh. It's my beating heart that bares the aftermath of your exit, your choices and your betrayal. Every night since _you shot me_ , I have wanted nothing more that to admonish the moments that have lead me here. To forget you – to purge and erase you from the remembrances of my inner machine. This eternal dichotomy will rage on. I want but I don't. I need and yet I refuse. I'm incapable of deciphering the enigma you have become, Erik. I'm furious and sad and lost and confused. 

But I know anger is a funny, devious bastard. It plays its wicked games on even the strongest men, tempting them to give in and forego their comfort and humanity. It's a deployed weapon of chance and happenstance – a silhouetted figure we cannot see – an enemy we cannot fight in the darkness of our inner core. It lashes out and it speaks before our thoughts had even been fully birthed – regret always a tardy patron, pleading for admittance once the show has already begun.

My friend, my friend. I... _want_ you more than I desire the use of my legs. Forgive me for pouring my immaturity and flaws onto you from this distance. What a fool I've been, to blame you for an event always fated to come to pass. What an arrogant, expectant man I've become, believing that you wouldn't dare leave my side on that warm November afternoon. Yet you still vanished. You vanished, you disappeared, you _turned your back on me._ On...what once was.

 _Anger is a funny thing._ No! I don't wish to feel this way.

Here I remain tonight, lying like the dead and expelling my hurt out into the universe, willing it to reach you – _begging_ it to reach you.

Remember me, Erik. Remember those nights. My anger chooses to deny those fulfilling moments from flooding my consciousness, and yet I purposely seek these memories now more than the breaths I am slowly taking in. I feel _you_ in those lucid shadows...your fingertips, the unkempt hair and achingly hot skin. If I shut them now, the image of your heavy lidded eyes staring into my own will pierce any and all doubts from the past. 

Somehow, I feel your mind bringing life into me, suspending me above myself by unseen magnetic forces and just enough passion to overflow all reason. No doubts, ever. There were never any moments of question or wavering truths with you. We just knew.

Yet as I write of the publicly unknown tenderness and love we once explored together, my mouth runs dry and the palms of my hands sweat from the nervous pit my stomach has descended into. I feel a fit of superlative worry coming to me as I recall those first hints of a new realm with one another.

_Dare I?_

†††

"Training... is this all you think about, Erik?" Charles quipped, voice cracking with exertion from their most recent exercise – it was all so demanding on his physical person. Charles' fingertips pulsed in tune with the beating of his rapid heart, lungs opening and closing to replenish the air that had forced itself in and out of his heaving chest.

"Why old man? Struggling to keep up?" Erik's tone was light and playful, his face dripping with tiny beads of sweat reflecting a glimmering sunrise, while two hands rested on firm knees. He was out of breath but not out of sorts, since rigorous battle training had been more than a regular neighbor in his lifetime. He watched Charles through hidden glances, mind swimming between competition and...curiosity.

_How powerful was Xavier? What were the lengths of his telepathy - how far exactly, could he project his will and...could he possibly be controlling me now? I wonder if he even kno–._

"I can assure that I am not, Erik." Charles' words were biting as he slipped his hands into the pockets of his gray training sweatpants. Lehnsherr's thoughts posed legitimate questions, albeit with deceptive undertones, and so Charles needed to ask: "Do you believe me to be the type of man - the type of mutant with whom controls the will of his friends?"

Erik stood in stunned repose, yet remained unsurprised that Charles had heard his inner inquiries. "I...I didn't mean to imply you were keeping me here, against my wishes or wants, Charles." His eyes hadn't dropped their gaze on Xavier, yet his hands shook lightly from the implications that may arise from such simple deviance; Erik did _not_ want their friendship to bare the brunt of his harmless questioning.

"Relax Erik. It's not the first, nor will it be the last time a fellow mutant has been curious as to the extent of my abilities. If you're truly interested, I'll offer you the answers you seek." Charles tipped his head down, his demeanor putting an end to that conversation. For now. 

Erik made no effort to move, tempting Charles to force him into action – _willing_ Xavier to heave him forward, to force-follow him into the mansion and...well, and what exactly, he wasn't sure.

"Either you want to know, or you don't, Erik, either way, I will not push your hand."

 _Goddamn arrogance._ Charles stopped, spun on the soles of his sneakers, his eyebrows now lifting, arching upwards in a quizzical manner. "That's not very pleasant, you know, thinking that towards me," Charles' lips turned upwards in a smile as he once again revealed what he had heard, creating an ease to the electric charge of their shared atmosphere.

Erik's smile exploded across his face, with each and every one of his teeth visible in pure, maddening clarity. _"If only you could read my mind, my friend,"_ Charles projected into Erik, his smile less bright, though heartfelt and meaningful.

"Erik, if you will, follow me?" Charles finally asked aloud, nodding his head upwards towards the mansions main entrance. "It'll be painless, my promise," he finished, ceasing any of Erik's concerns.

†††

The pillows are probably softer than I imagine them to be, but I have no sense to say for certain. My legs are laid on top of them, still bound together, still immobile, still useless. Punishing myself with sweet memories from a day spent with _you_ , Erik, I am now weaker than I was mere moments ago. Good heaven, what you do to me. What you've done to me.

The nurses tell me my wound is healing nicely, the tissue, muscles and skin repairing themselves as best they can, yet my spine refuses to participate in a state of mending affairs. If only you could sit beside me, reaffirm that maybe there aren't things worse than death, that _this_ isn't as bad as my cursed mind is making it out to be. It's not my physical condition that needs comforting.

Am I a desperate fool, cavorting and pursuing invisible magnetic waves that surround all beings to somehow float you back to me...back _into_ my life? God, to feel your presence inside of my head. I'm not a man of prayer, but the silence that surrounds me is so insufferably quiet, it may one day find me a master of belief that something or someone is out there. Only time may tell.

Save me, Erik. Save me as I once saved you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! More chapters coming...if that's the sort of thing I should be doing ;)


	3. when you fell, you fell towards me

"when you fell, you fell towards me"

I can still hear you. Somehow...I..I don't _know_ how exactly, but I can hear your proper, Harvard, Oxford, or whatever-ford voice in my pounding head, Charles. Peace was never, ever an option, just as I had once told you. Peace is a dream men of your caliber envision, not the likes of someone such as myself; vengeance and anger were once my saviors, my anchors. But then it was _your_ brilliance that had me believing in such fairy tales for a brief hiccup in time. Sorry to say, I don't anymore.

 _Your_ magnetism had the greatest pull on me...but I disallow my mind from wandering there, as those demons need not be resurrected on this cool December night. I hear pain and loneliness, but for the life of me, I can't discern if it's my own or a long distance plea I'm inadvertently receiving from you, Charles. The agony I've put you through...the _hatred_ you had seen in me that day can never be taken back, I know this now. My intentions were never, never to harm _you._

I sit alone and ponder the concept of forgiveness most nights. I pretend I understand it – the rules and the steps one must take to formerly forgive another – and yet I don't think I fully grasp how heavy it all is. I think about what you might say to me, if you see my face in passing, in battle, or in your dreams. I know I've seen yours. But I don't know of a single word or sentence or phrase that wouldn't sound like a dying thing taking its last pathetic breath.

I would know.

I sit alone and wonder about how you are recovering – how your wound must be healing – as I twirl that crushed bullet between my magnetic fingers. I stare at that object longer than I care to admit, imagining it as it enters your body, crashing into the bone that stopped it dead. But _no_ , no, I won't allow myself those waking nightmares of what I know has happened to you.

My feet ground themselves on the plush carpet of my hostel's semi-comfortable quarters. My toes digging, bending and forcing themselves between the thick fabric as the panic settles in my stomach. The urgency I feel whenever I think of you, Charles.

What if? Just what if? What if _I hurt you so bad_ you'd never be the one to calm the storms again?

I taste a faint sensation of blood in my mouth; my bottom lip sliding warmly against the top of my red tongue. I concentrate on the tiny slivers of pain that come from inadvertent self abuse, and pray yours was nothing more than this. I _pray_ Charles. I don't even know if I'm doing that correctly, but here I sit, my hands rested yet ready, calling out for help...calling out for _you._ Because...because I _sense_ that something isn't as it should be. But of course it isn't as it should be, is it?

A gunshot wound is one thing...but the ramifications of such force can go on for miles, and I plead that you are still up and able to the challenge. Your mind was never weak, was never shattered or misguided. It was never judgmental nor had it ever faltered in its pursuits. I beg, _beg_ that it carries you through this betrayal of mine, because I long to see you again. I long for those days when all wasn't right in the world but what we had made together _was_ right.

I sit here alone and think of you, Charles. Over again and over again and over again. Your power, your overwhelming control and patience to hold me steady and keep me sound. Our paths were always different, I believe we both knew that, but something more – something hidden – had lead us to one another. Had lead you to find me in the depths of that blackened ocean.

I would have died. I would have never let go and died, had you not jumped in after me. Your mind was a place of reverence and _fuck_ , if I hadn't worshipped you from afar on more than one occasion since that first meeting. I used to watch you as your mind would expand around an office; your body would move in tandem, with sure hands picking through mass amounts of interesting reads that never seemed to end but your presence...it was all around. Enveloping even. Your eyes had such focus – such clarity and the serenity that pooled within was breathtaking. To me. I am quite the opposite, you know.

And still...I don't think you've ever known these things, and I doubt you ever will.

_Finality._

My heart falters when that thought seeps into my careless consciousness. My hands grips the fabric of my nighttime attire as I forcibly try to stave off the tears that threaten to flood scarred cheeks. I've experienced all the hell this world has to offer but this worry, this _concern_ I emote has been causing my throat to swell. I'm refusing the sweet breath of air I so desire. I'm refusing _you_. Christ, I'm beginning to talk as though you were the one responsible for these words inside of my head.

I admit now that I wish this to be true. I wish your were inside of _me_ , inside of my thick skull, showing the greatness and the many reasons as to why it's a good thing I'm alive. The fight and the aftermath of my youth have shaped me into the storm I am now, but your _peace_ and your light had illuminated the darkness, urging me move forward. To move beyond the past.

You helped me when all else had been preordained to failure. And how did I choose to repay my gratitude? By redirecting a gunshot into your lower half. Your gentle body didn't deserve what's been brought upon it.

Charles. _Hear me_ now. I relinquish all insecurities and inhibitions, so please _hear_ me tonight, Charles.

I wish to feel you, to _really_ feel you once again. I sit here alone and wonder if you would permit my betraying hands to touch you once more. To experience your beautiful mind and feel the endless reach of your consciousness as it longs to connect with my own. Christ, the things you've shown me. The _love_ you had freely given me through your openness and the certainty of your own heart.

Charles, hear me. Hear me as I remember.

†††

The expanse of the mansion – or was it a castle? – was overwhelming and more than just a little intimidating the first time I had walked through as a "G-Man." As the time wore on it became a bit more comfortable, eventually even feeling a little like home. _A Goddamn big home_ , and one I relished sharing with you and your pro-mutant-human beliefs.

The days went on, and our mission goals began to reach critical mass with the pressure of Shaw's Cuban Missile Crisis looming darkly above, and so we trained harder. We learned from you, gained knowledge and power over ourselves and our abilities by your brilliant words of wisdom and unimpeded sense of control. _I_ learned from you.

I moved a satellite dish from three-four?-miles away. You helped me _move a fucking satellite dish._

Our preparations seemed never-ending, but I enjoyed the way you responded to the rigors of such exertion; openly I played along in gestures of verbal friendliness, inwardly I marveled at the strength you emitted. Your rising chest and sweaty forehead reminded me of the man that silently lain behind the machine that could, admitting to your incomparable strength, run this world. Because you _could_ , Charles, you could run this entire planet with a single thought.

Then happened the moment where I teasingly questioned the full extent of your abilities and the length they might have reached. You knew immediately what I had meant and it was then I realized you were a constant occupant in my head - and at first, I wasn't quite sure how to react. I wasn't angry nor had I felt any ill emotions to such mild occupancy, but it most assuredly enhanced my curiosity about you.

Then you offered to show me. To _show me_. I wasn't certain I would be up for such an in depth showcasing of powers and how one with your talents might go about doing such a tell-all, but I trusted you nonetheless.

Into the mansion – castle? – we went, and our lives were never the same. Things... _happened_ , between us. It was the first time we ever fully shared ourselves with another.

†††

"Charles, how _exactly_ are you going to show me...your mind altering, wholly-controlling, awe-inspiring abilities?" Erik scratched his head mid-sentence, licking his bottom lip and kicking the baseboard of Charles' door. He exhibited all the outward signs of a man nervous in his current situation.

"Erik, calm your mind. I can't think clearly enough with a marching band parading through your thoughts." Charles smirked and pocketed his hands (he seemed to like doing this), and moved towards Erik slowly but confidently, focusing intently on the taller mans eyes. _"Can you hear me, my friend?"_ Charles spoke, his lips never moving. _"Answer me with your mind, Erik."_ Erik stared back at Charles, his eyes blinking quickly and a look of trepidation overwhelmed his features. _"Okay I read you loud and clear. Now what General X?"_ Erik responded, cocking one eyebrow up in a mocking gesture, face waiting on the real Xavier show – one he wasn't completely sure he could handle – to begin.

 _"Listen carefully, my friend, I'm going to project images into your mind. Place people you've seen and people you haven't, locations you've never been too, or ones you never longed to return to. I need you to call out to me, should my advances go farther than you're comfortable with."_ Erik nodded and set his arms lazily at his sides, his feet shuffling to settle themselves for the riveting experience of what was to come.

Flashes, quick, explosive flashes of images assaulted Erik's mind. The mansion – castle? –, Raven, blue Raven, Hank, Hank and the jet model, Moira, Shaw, Shaw, Shaw, lightness, darkness, Charles, child Charles, child Charles scared and alone, every single room – empty and void of paternal love, the satellite dish, the submarine, the blackness of the sea, his own face – terrified and defeated, soaking with the icy aftermath of his underwater adventures. Then Charles appeared suddenly, standing as a child before the doors of his mother's bedroom, his hands were shaking and dripping with water. His feet were dirty and bloodied, his legs red and laced with the whipping and lashing of his run through the family grounds. He had been chased? Child Charles had ran so fast and so hard through the dark trees; trespassing men chasing behind him, angry and shouting, their voices carrying along the echoes of the woods' soft whispers. "Freak! Come on back here you English _sissy_ , you freak of nature! What are you?!"

 _Get him, catch him, grab him, beat him, throw him, hurt him, hurt him, hurt him._ The intentions of those prejudiced – unknown – men were made clear to Charles the moment he had stumbled upon their small camp, hidden safely away in the woods that surrounded his estate. He had made it free from their grasps, but not before being on the receiving end of their frightened, blood-thirsty fists. His face throbbed and his stomach lurched as they contemplated what they were going to do with such a _freak of nature._

How had they even known what Charles was to begin with? 

Charles couldn't handle the constant streams of murderous rage and simple-minded fear that drove them to do such abominable things. And so the child projected an image of the group standing on a threshold to a cliff that wasn't actually there. That brief moment was enough for Charles to break free and escape, running fast, as though the devil were on his coattails. He sped as though his life were threatened, as though that were his only option. And it was.

So he ran. And he ran. Hard, fast, strong, and determined to save himself and cast away those demonic minds as nothing more than _freaks of human nature._

It was all too much for Erik.

"STOP IT!" Erik cried out, his hands grabbing his head, eyes clamping shut to reverse the images back to ones of his fellow freedom fighters and Charles' unscathed peacefulness. It wasn't right, to Erik at least, that Charles could ever suffer the indignity of human oppression. Erik knew first hand horrors that most others did not, and yet the memories of child Xavier had rattled the German, shaking him to his core. 

Charles obeyed, his own form lagging slightly from the visual trip down a rabbit hole he thought he'd buried long, long ago. "Are you okay, Erik?" Xavier asked, placing a palm over the shaking mans shoulder. "I...I'm...Charles I had never expected... _you_ to have...to have experienced..." Erik's words drifted into oblivion; Charles' legs felt wobbly beneath the sorrow he felt for his most dearest of allies, for submitting Erik to those childhood nightmares, but it was a part of who and what he was. That's what Erik desired to see, wasn't it? 

"I am okay now, Erik. It's been a great many years since, and I have never once thought back to that day in regret. I _am_ a mutant, but I am a powerful mutant and I alone saved my life from those evil men." Charles' hand pulled itself back and away from Erik, his body turning sideways from the discomfort he felt due to Lehnsherr's silence.

"No, don't leave Charles. Don't...go now," Erik breathed out, making to walk towards the telepath. "Erik, I'm quite well now, can I say the same for you?" Charles asked, turning with just enough time to see Erik descend upon his shorter frame. Swiftly and without warning, two hands reached out to grab Charles' head, a passionate request suspended in the air around the men. 

"Let me _in_ , Charles. Let me touch you and feel your mind run through me. Allow me. Permit me. Give to me yourself again and let me back _in_." Erik's words were stricken with unbidden urgency as they pleaded with Charles. His fingers now intertwined with Xavier's thick, brown hair, anticipation was clouding Erik's mind – he needed those too-red lips – and contact was needed more than breath itself. Charles closed his eyes, his jaw clenched tightly in fear that he might actually, incredibly, lose control.

"...kiss me, Erik. Oh God kiss me _please_ ," Charles whispered, hands moving lightning-quick to wrap his arms around Erik's chest, his head nodding in admittance. Lehnsherr didn't waste another painful second of their unbearable separation.

Their lips connected at a sufferingly slow speed, their hands moving down the sides of their vibrating bodies to hold onto the other's; quiet moans escaped as each intake of sweet, hot air was forced out and into the formers. Charles' mind went alive as the union deepened, creating an explosive universe thrusting itself around them as they kissed. Stars shooting, diving around and into them. Lightness, darkness enveloping their every move. 

Erik broke away first, his hands holding Charles' face, fingers exploring the texture and slight stubble of the mind reader's ethereal skin. "I...have to go," Erik said, leaning his forehead against Charles' brow line while already swallowing the regret of such a hasty decision.

"I shall see you later tonight, my friend," Charles spoke, slipping two shaky hands into the pockets of his grey sweatpants.

†††

I sit here alone and wonder if you remember that first kiss. If its meaning for you is as pertinent as it is to me. My eyes nearly exploded the moment I felt your hands on my twitching body – that moment I felt your power in my own hands. Your thoughts had taken me into another dimension – another time – and I had never wanted to come back. I never wanted to come down to a waiting reality that was foreign to both you and I.

But the pain of your memories had driven me closer to you, had given me more of you to hold onto and _revel_ in. Nothing had ever been the same since you created that universe, for you and I, and I sit here now and wish nothing more than to experience those constellations as _you_ see them again. To feel them crash into us and heat our bodies much like the force of the sun – magnetic and electric. Fluid.

I must see you. I must _feel you_ again. I must.

Charles, when I come to you, please let me in again. I beg this of you.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a multi-chapter WIP that will flash forward and backwards, it will also be told through both Charles' & Erik's point of views as it progresses. I love the angst & the relationship of these amazing characters and that scene in the movie breaks my heart into...well, you all understand! Thanks for reading! xx


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